Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through a 62-minute meditation on the suffering of the lower realms, a foundational topic in patience practice from Śāntideva’s text. He establishes why this meditation matters: anger creates the strongest negative karma, ripening as the worst suffering, so understanding those consequences provides the fuel for genuine patience. After preparing the mind with refuge and bodhicitta, he walks through the lower realms systematically: first how our mind creates these realities through karma, not as external places but as expressions of our own delusions; human rebirths diminished by poverty, disease, ugliness, or meaninglessness; animal rebirth, dominated by survival desperation and constant fear of death; the preta realm of endless unquenched craving; and finally the hot and cold hell realms, direct results of anger. Throughout, he uses concrete examples—caged chickens, animals in laboratories, the reviving hell where beings mutually slaughter each other in instantaneous hatred. He closes by urging practitioners to use this understanding to cultivate patience and mindfulness now, in daily life. Pitched at serious practitioners or those in organized retreat.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 9. Day 2 Meditation Hell Realms.mp3
UUID: c55d4c67-3005-4217-8164-ac0c31512d0f
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: KI Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2005 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 62.2 minutes
Words: ~3,856
There’s not enough time to cover all the topics because I’ve been trying to particularly cover the topics that very directly relate to practicing patience. So the next topic is thinking about the lower realms. I’m sorry, but in meditating on patience one of the ways to as Geshe-la was explaining yesterday according to the text, the first part of Śāntideva’s text talks about thinking of the faults of anger. And of course one of the major faults is it creates negative imprints and these ripen as suffering, and particularly in the lower realms. With anger we create some of the worst negative karma, the strongest negative karma, so that can ripen in the lower realms.
So by allowing us to think about the actual suffering we’re creating by getting angry, this becomes the way to cultivate patience. So if we haven’t thought about the actual suffering results of anger we don’t have the fuel to practice patience. Because in getting angry we get angry to try and stop a certain degree of suffering which we perceive is coming to us. But we’re actually creating the cause for far greater suffering by getting angry. So this is what we really have to understand and really believe and feel and be mindful of.
So what is better, a little bit of suffering now or a whole lot in the future? And it’s just a very simple arithmetic or math, as the Americans say it’s just a matter of math. So we can again begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible, placing the right hand on top of the left, thumbs lightly touching, our hands resting in our lap, arms just a little bit away from the sides of the body. Really putting some effort into checking our posture because we can get into really bad habits of sitting which is really not good for our body or mind. So we’re really trying to check the positioning of our spine and upper body and the positioning of the head.
Although it’s easier to meditate with your eyes closed, it’s okay to do that of course. His Holiness always says it’s better to train from the beginning to keep your eyes a little bit open. There’s many benefits of that. Obvious one is that by having a little light coming in then the gross distraction of dullness and sleepiness can be avoided to some extent. So then preparing the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise, combined with the visualisation of breathing in blessings in the form of white light, breathing out all one’s disturbing thoughts, negative imprints, and particular obstacles that one knows that one has to doing this particular meditation, really think of those.
Imagine breathing them out with each out breath of the cycle in the form of black smoke that completely dissipates, becomes completely nonexistent. Now on the basis of that calm, neutral mind, we cultivate a very powerful, virtuous mind, firstly of refuge, recognising that it is our own mind that gives rise to all suffering, all happiness. So even if we, on the basis of that, wish to take responsibility for our own mind and work in a skilful way, we just simply, as isolated individuals, don’t have the skills, the insights to do that. We need a pure method, completely unbetrayable method and that is the Buddhadharma because it comes from enlightened mind. So generate that devotional mind of refuge in the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, and the great practitioners of those teachings.
So we visualise Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of the Triple Gem, the very embodiment of all the qualities of the Triple Gem. At the same time thinking of Śākyamūni Buddha as oneness with one’s guru if one has established that relationship. So then on the basis of that strong refuge, cultivate the bodhicitta mind wishing to fully develop and realise the complete potential of one’s mind, not only for the benefit it brings oneself, but especially because the enlightened mind contains all those qualities and powers and abilities that enable us to perfectly repay the kindness of sentient beings, enabling us to guide each and every suffering mother sentient being away from the causes of suffering and enables us to guide them continuously along the path until they achieve enlightenment. Really feel that this is my responsibility to every sentient being. So we visualize all these kind suffering beings surrounding us, starting with our mother on our left, father on our right, the rest of our family and friends behind, antagonists in front.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the merit of all holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the Great Enlightenment.’ So visualising all of cyclic existence, the whole universe which we offer to the Buddhas. And as the words of the mandala say, we visualise the universe not just in its ordinary aspect but transforming it into pure lands, and then we offer the universe in the form of pure lands to the Buddhas with the wish that all sentient beings can live in such pure lands and not in contaminated environments produced by delusion and karma, but in the pure lands produced by the pure minds of the Buddhas. So then the Lam Rim prayer, page twenty seven. Nature that embodies all the Buddhas, source of all the pure transmission and realization Dharma, principle amongst all the aryasangha, I take refuge in all magnificent pure gurus.
Please bless my mind to become Dharma, that Dharma has become the path and that path to be free of all hindrances. Until I achieve enlightenment, may I, just like the bodhisattva Shiwali Nyur Sangpo and Daktok Mu, practice pure devotion to my guru in thought and action, see all the actions of my guru as excellent, and fulfill whatever he advises. Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this. Knowing that this highly meaningful perfect human rebirth is difficult to obtain and easily lost, realizing the profundity of cause and effect and the unbearable sufferings of the lower realms, from my heart, I take refuge in the three precious sublime ones, abandon negativity, and practice virtue in accordance with the Dharma. Please bless me with the potential to accomplish this.
in dependence on this, I am able to attain only the higher rebirths of humans and gods. Not having abandoned afflictions, I have to experience uninterrupted, limitless, cyclic existence. By contemplating well how cyclic existence works, may I train day and night in the principal path of the three higher trainings, the means of attaining liberation. Please bless me with the potential to always train like this. in dependence on this, I am able to attain only self liberation.
As there is not one sentient being in all the six realms who has not been my mother or father, I will turn away from this lower happiness and generate the wish to fulfil their ultimate purposes. By contemplating the path of equalising and exchanging self for others, I will generate the precious bodhicitta and engage in the bodhisattva’s actions of the six perfections. Please bless me with the potential to train in this way. Having trained like this in the common path, I myself will not have aversion to experiencing the sufferings of cyclic existence for a long time, but by the forces of extraordinary unbearable compassion for sentient beings, may I enter the quick path of the vajrayana. By observing purely my vows and pledges even at the cost of my life, May I quickly attain the unified state of vajradhara in one brief lifetime of this degenerate age.
Please bless me with the potential to attain this. So then think that Guru Śākyamūni is very pleased with our intentions, and because of this the Buddha seated on the lotus sun and moon comes to the crown of our head, turning around, facing the same direction as ourselves. Then make a strong heartfelt request to the Guru Buddha for one’s mind to be completely freed of all obstacles that prevent one correctly meditating on and gaining the realization of the suffering of the lower of the existence of the lower realms and the terrible suffering that occurs there. Think the Buddha happily responds by sending this continuous stream of white light and nectar from his heart into us. We imagine that this washes away all those obstacles that take the form of thick black liquid that leaves from the lower part of our body and completely becomes non existent.
And then as a result of that, a continuous stream of golden light and nectar comes from the Buddha, filling our whole body and mind, blessing us to be able to meditate correctly on suffering of the lower realms, blessing our mind to gain a complete, abiding, stable realization. So firstly we can consider just briefly why we should meditate on such a painful subject topic. And the reason is that by really thinking about the reality of the lower realms and the tremendous suffering that our mind experiences in those states, We look for the cause of it and the cause is creating negative karma or these negative imprints and these are generated by following the negative actions of body, speech and mind, the ten non virtues of body, speech and mind. And these are motivated by our self-cherishing and our attachment and anger. In many cases the worst when we engage in the negativities of body, speech and mind.
The worst negative imprints are created not necessarily but often through anger, killing with anger, engaging in stealing through anger, sexual misconduct through anger, lying because of anger, divisive speech because of anger, and so on. So the heaviest negative, its strongest negative imprints are generated this way. So the more we see the suffering results of that created by our mind, then we have the energy to let go of these things, to renounce them, renounce our attachment to the appearance of this life, which is the basis of engaging in all these negative actions. So with this in mind, then we can think about the suffering of the lower realms, the reality of them, and the suffering that exists there. So we shouldn’t think of the lower realms as something separate from our mind.
The lower realms are an expression of our mind. It can get complicated at the moment but if one has a little bit of understanding of emptiness and dependent arising, this human world that we’re experiencing now, the ordinary mind thinks that there is this external world, this world completely separate from us, that there is this real world out there completely separate, in dependence upon our mind. But that’s not true. Even this human world that we live in, that we as an individual are experiencing, is not something separate from our mind. That’s very important to understand.
If we understand that we can begin to believe in the lower realms. Of course when we die this world will continue for other people but for us it no longer exists because it depends on our mind, it depends on our karma. We die when the karma to experience this world finishes. When that karma finishes, then the mind no longer gives rise to this world. And then the karma for another experience ripens, and that karma can be for the mind to give rise to the lower realms.
So what are the lower realms? We may find it very hard to believe that I could be born as an animal, I could experience that suffering, or I could experience the suffering of the preta realms or the hell realms. So leaving those realms aside for the moment, even if we take rebirth as a human being again, human beings can experience tremendous suffering. I could have a human rebirth that is far, far worse than the human rebirth I have now. For For example, I could have a human rebirth which is not a precious human rebirth, where I don’t meet the Dharma, where I have no faith in it.
This itself is a lower rebirth, a much lower rebirth than the one I have. Do I really want to have such a rebirth? Even if we’re not able to practice the Dharma very well, one of the greatest blessings of having some faith in the Dharma is that it gives life meaning and we have the chance to make our life meaningful. This is something incredibly precious. Whereas so many people are suffering because their life has no meaning.
This is one of the worst kinds of suffering of all, the feeling that oneself and life in general is meaningless. So that is a lower rebirth, that’s a lower realm. That’s a lower rebirth. It’s so easy to create the causes through self-cherishing, anger and attachment for such a suffering rebirth. And then reflect that even if one was born, reborn again as a human being with a mind similar to what it is now, in a pleasant environment like I am reborn in now, but I could be reborn with a much more suffering body.
One of the karmic results of anger is to have a very ugly body human body when one is born as a human again. The karmic result of killing when one is to fall into the lower realms, but when one is reborn as a human, the other karmic results of that act of killing are experienced as having a lot of sickness continuously, having a very weak body, no energy. So we could have such a rebirth, very ugly, physically impaired, a lot of sickness, no energy. Do we want such a rebirth? It’s so easy to create the cause for such suffering.
Millions of human beings experience that. Hundreds of millions. Could we bear that suffering? Even if we are born human again, we could be born with a much more suffering mind than we have now. The delusion is much stronger, more difficult to subdue.
We could be born with a very disturbed mind, a lot of fear, paranoia, which are the karmic results of ill will. We could be born far less intelligent than we are now. Just think of that suffering that hundreds of millions of human beings are enduring right now. It’s so easy to create the causes. Even if we’re born with a healthy body, a healthy mind, even as a human being, we could be born in so many places, situations in this world where the equanimity, the environment is such a disaster that there is so much suffering.
Places where there is continuous warfare, natural disasters, where there’s just a life of poverty and misery and ugliness. Hundreds of millions of human beings endure such lives and it’s so easy to create the causes. And then finally we can reflect that even if one is born human, one could be born with a much more suffering body, that all three things are much more suffering body than I have now, a much more deluded, confused mind than I have now, and born in a terrible environment. Really, hundreds of millions of people exist this way. Could we bear that suffering?
So according to the teachings, to experience such a suffering human rebirth, these are the results in a sense we can say the secondary results of creating very strong negative karma. The primary result, the ripened result of strong negative karma is what the mind to be so obscured that it cannot experience a human reality at all. There is only the reality, the experience of the suffering suffering lower realms such as the animal realm. So just as our mind in this life took rebirth in a human womb and therefore we have this human body and therefore the mind operating at a human level, It is possible that when we die, the mind doesn’t enter into a human womb but enters into the egg or womb of an animal. Then we have an animal body and an animal level of awareness and then the suffering of an animal.
It might be helpful to reflect one one way, one reason why it’s difficult to believe I could be reborn as an animal is because of the wrong view that we have of what I is. If we identify I am my body, if we have that strong wrong view. Identifying with this body, this mind, this is not me. This ‘I’ that is arising depending on this body and the mind of this life, that is definitely a death going to stop. That is not going to go into a future life.
The I of this life will never become an animal. It’s going to stop, become non existence. But the subtlest level of mind continues. And with it, the thought of I, the appearance of I continues. But that subtlest level of mind can enter into an animal womb, an animal egg.
Then there is an animal body, and we identify with that body. And there is the thought of I again, the I of this life, which is trapped in an animal body. So one of the principal sufferings in the animal realm is that animals have so little control over their lives. They may have some amazing skills but still if one thinks the life of an animal is mainly just surviving, just getting food, the desperate search for food constantly. And often this is very difficult to get, requiring incredible energy and concentration all the time.
And at the same time, there is this tremendous fear of being killed by some other being. Imagine one’s whole life like that, always fearing, for very good reason, that one could be killed at almost any moment, eaten alive at any moment. This is this is the life of most animals. Just reflect what an incredible tragedy it is for ourselves and others that we’ve achieved this precious human rebirth, and we have this amazing Buddha potential. But through our attachment to the petty things of this life, we create negative karma that ripens as the suffering of the lower realms, being born as an animal.
Because of being angry in just a moment because of some small thing, which is all to do with our own ego. I’m going to reflect on the suffering of domestic animals in our society, animals that are kept or grown for food. Think of the suffering of the thousands of chickens that are kept in these terrible tiny cages, rows and rows, one above the other, to produce meat or eggs so that we can have that. Animals that are tortured in laboratories So even greater is the suffering that occurs if our mind becomes even more obscured and the mind sinks into the realm of the hungry ghosts. And in that realm we just can experience continuous craving, unrequited craving, never getting what we want, always craving it, always being tantalised by the appearance of what we want in front of us.
But when we reach out to get it, it disappears. It turns into something disgusting. Some hideous monster, karmically created, prevents us experiencing it. So the mind is utterly tormented by craving, never getting the result. And the whole life is just that experience.
Having this ugly suffering body that only experiences hunger and thirst. In this ugly desolate environment completely devoid of anything pleasant or beautiful. It is our mind that creates that realm. The negative aspect of our mind. We are generating the causes of that realm now with our attachment, with our anger, with our miserliness.
The lowest realms of all of the mind, the hell realms, are particularly the result of anger. There are hot hells that are the result of ordinary anger, hot anger that we generate so easily. It is said in the sutras that there one experiences just continuous torment of body and mind, where the environment is just burning, the ground is like molten metal. So there’s this continuous suffering of heat but also other sufferings as well. In the Sutras it explains that the least suffering of these in the least suffering of these hot hells, called the reviving hell, one is born into a place where one is surrounded like in a huge crowd of people.
And everyone you look at, you you find them completely disgusting, completely ugly. You generate incredible hatred and aversion to them the moment you look at them. And as you do that, they they in turn develop complete hatred for you. Everyone hates each other and just harms each other, hacks each other to pieces. As soon as your mind thinks of it, some weapon appears in your hand and you use it to harm those around you.
But as you harm, others harm you. And then you die and are reborn in that environment again, and the same process happens again and again. This is all a reflection of our most negative levels of mind. And the cold hells are the result of our cold anger where we react with complete cold indifference to the suffering of others. There the environment one is born into total darkness, total silence, and complete ice freezing.
One is born utterly alone in darkness, silence. Her only experiencing this complete coldness of body and mind. We never have to experience these states if we don’t create the cause. So we can bring this reflection to an end by making a strong determination to be really mindful in our daily life of the disturbing thoughts arising, particularly anger, but all the disturbing thoughts, really having the strong determination not to follow them, to apply the antidotes as much as possible, especially practicing patience, especially putting effort in to cultivate the mind of patience now while we’re not angry, but to learn all the antidotes to all the delusions. And this is what we can do with this precious human rebirth.
That’s its meaning. That’s its purpose. Then recall the Buddha at the crown of your head, thinking the Buddha is extremely pleased with what we’ve meditated on and decided. Because of that, the Buddha happily dissolves into blissful golden light, which comes down through the crown of our head, blessing our body, speech and mind, blessing us to gain a complete realization of the suffering of the lower realms. Then we dedicate the merit.
Page twenty six, twenty seven of the morning prayers.